Underdead (19 page)

Gavin would have his way after all. I was off the case.

*

“Do you think you’ll stay on next year?” I chose a golden delicious from the box set out for the teachers during the morning break.

A few feet away, Becky was talking animatedly with Carol. She seemed to bear no scars from our talk that morning, but I was too consumed with my own guilt to join them. I turned back to Leah and pretended I was interested in the answer to my question.

“It depends on a lot of things, most importantly whether Dick Huntington asks me back,” Leah replied. She seemed to think twice about the apples when I put mine down with a moue of distaste. The apples were fine, it was just that I had caught myself trying to pretend it was the rare juices of a burger that cascaded over my tongue.

Leah glanced behind me and added, “Speak of the devil… Hello, Dick, Roger, care to join us for a cup of coffee?”

“Certainly.” The headmaster’s rich voice boomed as he took the short flight of steps up to the covered terrace. Schedule permitting, he liked to join the teachers at coffee break. “Do I understand that my ears should be burning?”

Roger followed in his wake like a runty dog, looking peeved at having lost the headmaster’s attention.

“Oh, it was nothing,” said Leah. “I was just telling Jo how much I’m enjoying teaching here.”

“And we were glad to have you here. I understand the students are adjusting satisfactorily.” He looked to Roger for confirmation, but Roger had feigned a sudden and convenient deafness. What should have been a compliment suddenly turned into a subtle questioning of her ability, even though she had been working her tail off and by all reports was doing a great job.

“According to my study hall aide, she’s doing a good job filling Bob’s shoes. Word is, she’s tough, but the kids all seem to like her…” I stopped abruptly when I caught a glimpse of Roger’s face. The look in his small, dark eyes was so venomous it sent shivers down my spine. I don’t think I had realized how badly Roger wanted that biology position until just then.

Apparently I was the only one aware of Roger’s real feelings. Leah pinked slightly at the praise and modestly tried to change the subject, and Headmaster Huntington looked pleased and clapped a hand to Roger’s shoulder. “Well Roger, maybe if we’re lucky we can get Leah to stay on next year.”

Roger managed to say something noncommittal and the headmaster favored us with a wide parting smile and moved on to work the room. Leah suggested a trip to the faculty lounge to check our mailboxes and I went with her. As we walked away, I felt Roger’s glare digging between my shoulder blades like a knife.

I thought I had overdramatized Roger’s reaction until he showed up in my classroom that afternoon for an impromptu evaluation. There was only one reason why he would have wasted a free period on me when he was about to be swamped with department-wide evaluations in a couple of weeks—to put some black marks on my record. He would probably get what he came for. Today was the day I was starting the dreaded mineral lab, or as I liked to call it, Caveman Weapon Appreciation Day.

So there I was, handing out trays of would-be projectiles, along with bottles of dilute hydrochloric acid and steel files, to a room full of jaded squirrelly tweens. Roger sat on a stool in the back of the room, watching with the benevolence of an orc.

Usually the presence of another teacher turned the students into quiet little angels, so that one tended to get dinged for weak class participation. But my sixth period students seemed to be spurred on to more craziness than usual. I had to take the steel file away from one group of boys who would not be otherwise deterred from drilling a hole through everything they could get their hands on. Mindful of their audience, they responded with loud, crocodile cries of, “But however are we going to learn, Ms. Gartner?” I took away their hydrochloric acid, too.

Roger took it all in with mean little raisin eyes. His face was fixed in a deep frown of disgust, except in those moments when he would note a transgression in his notebook. Then he would smirk. After only twenty minutes, he left patting his notebook and grinning from ear to ear.

When the bell rang, Carol appeared at my door and pulled me aside, taking care to smile benignly at my departing students as if she had just popped in for a chat. She also took pains to hide the fact that she had sprinted from the administration building, which made conversation difficult. “Roger…notes…administration,” she wheezed in low tones.

I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. “He went straight to Maxine, didn’t he?” I said furiously. “He’s such a rat…”

“No. Dick Huntington.” Her eyes were pools of regret.

“Bastard,” I amended in a horrified whisper. Roger was supposed to go over his notes with me and then file a record of our discussion with Maxine, and frankly, that would have been bad enough. Going to the headmaster was worse than tattling, it was selling me out. I knew why he’d done it, of course. My credibility needed to be put into question immediately, lest Dick forget who had praised Leah that morning. A nice ironic twist on the spirit of “consider the source”.

Carol glanced at the clock and said hurriedly, “Sally said Huntington will stop by for a visit in about a half-hour.” Sally was the headmaster’s secretary, and if she said the headmaster was coming to audit my class, he was coming to audit my class. “You’ll be fine.” Carol patted me on the shoulder and hustled out to get to her next class.

I felt my career slipping away from me. All that hard work I’d put in, all the progress I’d made, had come to nothing.
This
moment,
one
singularly out-of-control class, was what would be remembered when it came time for contract renewal.

My seventh period students had bounced in with their usual high energy, and instead of taking their seats when the bell rang, they stood chatting in groups, fingering the specimens in the mineral trays. They were being curious rather than disrespectful, but after all that had just happened, I snapped. I gave them a talking-to that went down in the history of talking-tos, followed by a good three minutes of righteous glaring. The classroom was so quiet I could hear the clock tick through the minutes. In truth, the students were probably more scared I’d gone off the deep end than sitting in respectful silence, but I didn’t care.

When the headmaster “happened by” later that period, my students were models of good behavior.

Hah! Feeling victorious, I headed out of the middle school semester grade review meeting.

Despite the close air of the staff meeting room, I was wide awake and slack-jawed with horror at the gossip coming out of some of my colleagues’ mouths. Did we really need to know that Jon Edgecome’s algebra grades had taken a dive after his father had gotten remarried—to a twenty-one-year-old Norwegian supermodel?

I wrenched my attention away from an eye-popping picture of the new Mrs. Edgecome in time to answer Maxine’s query about the low grade I’d given Chucky Farryll.

Before Maxine could respond, Chucky’s French teacher chimed in with a sour look. “I don’t believe the Farrylls really care about the boy’s education. All they talked about was how much Chucky wanted to play varsity soccer.”

His math teacher nodded. “I have to wonder about them as well, Maxine. His mother didn’t even show up for her parent conference and I waited in my classroom until 8:45!”

“She was probably collecting her son,” Roger said. “I caught the boy roaming the halls around eight and told him to find his mother and go home. Students are not supposed to be on campus during parent-teacher night.”

“That’s a silly rule.” The chair of the English department’s scraggly salt and pepper bun quivered with righteousness. “I find I often get better results when the students are present. None of that
he said, she said
nonsense.”

Maxine held up a hand to regain control before the meeting dissolved into a free-for-all. “I will talk to Mr. and Mrs. Farryll to see if we can’t resolve Chucky’s little sit-in before we begin the extra tutoring. Now, let’s move on. Sarah Chen. B-student everywhere, D+ in social studies. Jeff, what’s the story there?”

“Sarah spends the entire time staring at Erik Evans, no matter where I seat her. Frankly, I’m surprised she managed the D.”

Maxine’s reply must have been a good one, as it elicited a round of laughter, but I didn’t hear it. Had no one but me noticed that the soccer-obsessed Mrs. Farryll had been on campus and unaccounted for during the time when Coach Bob had been killed?

I let out a sigh. My plan to sit quietly on the sidelines and let the police handle Bob’s murder investigation hadn’t lasted even a day.

By the time the middle school grade meeting ended and I made it to the police station, Gavin had already left for the day.

“Is there any way I could reach Detective Raines tonight?” I asked the desk sergeant. “I really need to talk to him.”

“I’m sorry, Miss. I can take a message, if you’d like, or perhaps you’d like to talk to another officer?”

“No, that’s all right,” I said. I added wryly to myself, “He’ll probably be by later anyway.”

“What was that, Miss?”

“Oh, nothing, just talking myself.” His pale blue eyes regarded me narrowly as I thanked him for his help and left.

When I got home, I fixed myself something to eat and perched outside on the top step to wait for Gavin or one of his lackeys to cruise by. They weren’t pulling all-night watches anymore, but someone, usually Gavin, made a drive-by at least a couple times a night. At eight-thirty, when Gavin finally showed, I was still sitting outside, comfortably warm in a sweater in the mild night, grading papers under the surprisingly adequate outdoor lights.

He came up the walk at a rapid pace and took the stairs up toward me two at a time. The yelling started before he’d gotten halfway.

“What the hell are you doing out here? They could come by and pull you off the stairs before you even knew what had happened.”

I frankly doubted
that
—I always knew when Will was nearby from the hormone fluctuations.

Gavin pushed me inside and then came in after me. After making a big ceremony of locking the door behind him, he stomped into the kitchen and sat down at the table. He got up almost immediately to pull the fat yellow seat cushion out from behind his back, and lobbed it onto the table where it slid onto the floor. I picked it up, placed it neatly back on the table and sat down across from him.

His anger hadn’t cooled one whit, but I ignored the irritable fidgeting, tapping fingers and angry glare. “I waited outside because I wanted to talk to you. I tried to reach you at the station, but you’d already gone. If you’d bothered to give me your cell phone number…”

“You have my work extension and there’s always 9-1-1.”

“You never answer your extension and do you really want me calling 9-1-1 to discuss vampires with the dispatcher? This is stupid. Why won’t you give me your cell phone number?”

He glared at me with eyes like silver balls. “What do you want, Jo?”

“The reason I’ve invited you here,” I began, enjoying myself a little too much as his mouth got white at the corners from clenching his jaw tightly in irritation, “is because I have a new suspect.”

“I thought we agreed you were not to go hunting for suspects.”

“
We
didn’t agree to anything. But that’s beside the point. I didn’t hunt for this one, it came to me.” I explained what I had learned about Chucky being on campus and his mother missing her 8:30 conference the night of Bob’s death. “They had opportunity and motive, which is more than I can say about anyone else at Bayshore.”

The last part came out before I could stop myself, but to my surprise, Gavin didn’t respond to my implied admission of sleuthing with his usual lecture. Instead, he stood up and headed for the door. “Fine. I’ll look into it. Thanks so much. Do you think you can stay inside now?”

Boy, someone was cranky. I decided to let Becky’s e-mail wait until he was in a better frame of mind. I was quite sure it was a dead-end, and I didn’t want his anger at me to prejudice him against her.

“Excuse me, are you the teacher?”

A man wearing blue chinos and a blue and white shirt that screamed uniform was standing by my classroom door, looking back and forth between me and my departing students.

No, I’m 13
. “Yes, what can I do for you?” I spoke briskly, hoping he’d make it fast. I wanted to make it to the cafeteria before all the gravy was gone. It was French Dip Friday, one of the few meals I liked at Bayshore these days. It hadn’t always been a favorite. That high honor went to the cafeteria’s fabulous homemade macaroni and cheese. It was rich and velvety, with lots of melted cheese and crunchy breadcrumbs on top. They served it with steamed broccoli and cauliflower so you could pretend it was a healthy meal. Now it made me gag. Will had ruined it for me and in my opinion this spoke of the fundamental problem with vampires. They couldn’t enjoy a good old-fashioned plate of macaroni and cheese. A little comfort food would probably go a long way to resolving all that dark, scary, Lord of the Night stuff.

“I’m Rudy. I’m here about the gas leak.” He stepped into my classroom and the heavy leather tool belt strung low on his hips clinked and jingled as he moved.

“Gas leak?” Sure enough, the blue and white patch on his shirt identified him as an employee of the gas company.

Roger came in and eyed Rudy with satisfaction. “Ah, good, you’re here. Now, these classrooms are outfitted with air and gas valves.” Roger pointed to the paired nozzles that emanated from the walls above the countertops at regular intervals. “The leak could be coming from any one of them, though I suspect more than one is defective since the students in the back seemed equally as affected as the ones in the front.”

Rudy nodded and aimed a long narrow instrument near the tip of the first gas valve. It made a slow ticking noise like a Geiger counter.

“What’s going on?” I asked Roger.

“I believe there’s a gas leak in this room,” Roger said. He hovered over Rudy, who was doing a capable job of ignoring him.